patti smith

I don’t know about you, but galas are not an everyday thing around these parts– the closest this reporter’s been to a real black-tie-and-gown affair was high school prom, which didn’t even really happen because my date got arrested. So needless to say, when I was somehow allowed to crash the Anthology Film Archives gala –a fancy fundraising party and art auction held last week to raise cash for the theater’s expansion– I was just slightly out of my realm. It was made all the more surreal by a performance from Patti Smith, and seeing people like John Waters, Zosia Mamet, and Zac Posen’s eyebrows all in one room.

Ethan Hawke and Patti Smith seemed like kind of a weird pairing for a Tribeca Talk, and yesterday’s tete a tete at the Tribeca Film Festival started a little awkwardly when they couldn’t decide who was supposed to be the moderator. “How about this?” Smith suggested. “Neither one of us be the moderator and we’ll both be ourselves.”

The Barnes & Noble at Union Square was packed to the gills last night, with a line already forming on 17th Street long before Patti Smith was due to appear.

Riding the escalator up, we saw kids crowding every floor, sitting amongst the stacks in the hopes of hearing Smith read, even if they couldn’t buy a copy of her new book to get a wristband and get into the seating area and be guaranteed a signature in Smith’s new book, M Train.

Patti Smith will be signing her new book, a memoir called M Train, at Barnes & Noble. Illustrated with her signature Polaroids, M Train is described as a meditation on travel, detective shows, literature, and coffee. Smith herself calls it a “roadmap to my life,” and it all starts in a Greenwich Village café where a young Smith used to ruminate on life, jotting down thoughts in her notebook while enjoying a cup of joe; we can scarcely think of a more poetic beginning for this now-beloved icon’s journey to becoming one of the most remarkable multi-platform artists at work today.Must show proof of purchase of M Train from a BN retail location or BN.com to receive a wristband. Smith will be signing the new book only, no backlist titles or memorabilia.

Nitehawk’s “Booze & Books” series is partnering with Abrams Books for a signing of Tom Shone’s Woody Allen: A Retrospective and screening of the director’s 1980 film Stardust Memories (starring Allen, Charlotte Rampling and Jessica Harper). Fittingly, the movie is about a filmmaker recalling his various inspirations while attending a retrospective of his work. Before the show Shone will be signing the illustrated biography, the first complete film-by-film overview of Allen’s career; it includes original interviews as well as 250 behind-the-scenes stills, photographs, posters, and ephemera. Don’t forget to ask about the special cocktail for sale, inspired by the film – it is “Booze & Books,” after all.Tuesday, October 6 at 7:30 p.m. Nitehawk Cinema, 36 Metropolitan Avenue (Williamsburg).$15 (ticket only) or $45 (ticket plus book).

It doesn’t get more New York than this: Patti Smith, Laurie Anderson, Debbie Harry and Miley Cyrus (?!) singing “People Have the Power” at Carnegie Hall along with Philip Glass, Ira Glass, Dev Hynes and the Flaming Lips, among others. It happened last night to close out the 25th annual Tibet House benefit.

Outrage over the weekend shutdown of Rockaway’s city beaches made the cover of the Daily News (excuse to put a bikinied hardbody on the front page, much?), but fans of Patti Smith and James Franco found more welcoming sands over at Fort Tilden during the kickoff of the “Rockaway!” art festival.Keep Reading »

In addition to her pad in the Village, the songstress keeps a place in Rockaway and has been known to serenade the locals every now and then. This free show — put on by MoMA PS1 and the Rockaway Artists Alliance, among others — closes out the opening day of the Rockaway! public art festival, and will take place at the Artist Alliance’s outdoor stage. Afterparty at the Rockaway Beach Surf Club.

Hours after Bill de Blasio kicked off Internet Week, the technorati poured into Cipriani Wall Street last night to see Patton Oswalt host the 18th annual Webby Awards. The comic was quick to poke fun at websites whose founders were in the audience: “Even if I eat it tonight Reddit will find a way to blame it on the wrong person,” he quipped.

If you guessed that Waldman, a preeminent poet prone to fiery performances, read/chanted from Burroughs’s work while Moore (with his brother Gene also on guitar) did his best impression of a guitarist high on “black meat,” you’re correct.Keep Reading »

As you may have read over at Rolling Stone, Pat Ivers and Emily Armstrong — in what’s sure to be one of the highlights of the CBGB Festival — are screening some of their rare late-70s and early-80s concert footage at Bowery Electric tonight, between performances by Cheetah Chrome of the Dead Boys, Syl Sylvain of the New York Dolls, and Glen Matlock of the Sex Pistols. We were lucky enough to have the authors of our weekly Nightclubbing column into the B+B Newsroom last Friday, along with Richard Boch, who’s working on a memoir of his time manning the door of the Mudd Club, and Pat Irwin, the guitarist for the Raybeats, 8 Eyed Spy and the B-52s, who spoke about his recently unearthed collaboration with Philip Glass.

If you missed Friday’s discussion, watch the replay above. Here’s what the gang had to say about Suicide (we spoke to Martin Rev of that band back in June) and the evolution of the Ramones.Keep Reading »

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Bedford + Bowery is where downtown Manhattan and north Brooklyn intersect. Produced by NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute in collaboration with New York magazine, B + B covers the East Village, Lower East Side, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick, and beyond. Want to contribute? Send a tip? E-mail the editor.